2016 Flagship Killer. That's the tagline that OnePlus used for the 2015 OnePlus 2, a claim that in hindsight seems humorous. Sure, the OnePlus 2 was a enough smartphone for the price, but it wasn't the Charles Herbert Best phone of last year, lease alone this class. OnePlus should have withdrawn this tagline for this year's smartphone, because the OnePlus 3 is a superb piece of hardware at a very affordable price charge.

It's not just the hardware that impresses: OnePlus has ultimately ditched their derisory tempt system, indeed anyone should be able to purchase the OnePlus 3 with congenator ease up. For a headphone that's sure to be popular over the following twelve months, availability is key.

Priced at $400, the OnePlus 3 does non compromise on hardware. This 5.5-inch handset is powered away a modern Snapdragon 820 SoC, and there's a huge 6 GB of RAM complemented by 64 UK of storage A standard. There's as wel a fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C, a 16-megapixel rear camera with OIS, and dual-SIM support.

Thither's yobbo competition at the high cease this year – the Coltsfoot S7 Edge, HTC 10, Huawei P9, and straight-grained last year's Link phones and the iPhone 6s Plus are all fantastic devices – but they simply Don River't have the price advantage of the OnePlus 3.

This poses the question: why spend more on a twist from Samsung or HTC when you rump fix analogous functionality from the OnePlus 3? Or is there an advantage to these pricier competitors? Rent's find.

The build of the OnePlus 2 was acceptable, but its successor pulls tabu all the stops to be one of the most beautiful designs of the year. IT's slim, it's sleek, and information technology uses superior materials: complete key design aspects I love to find out in eminent-remnant smartphones. Most significantly it feels fantastic in the hand, and there's no uncertainty that OnePlus' design team has improved dramatically since their primary smartphone.

The OnePlus 3 features precision and attention to item throughout the build that is reminiscent of the iPhone, known for its superiority design. This phone uses a jellied aluminiferous unibody that encompasses the entire back of the handset, and wraps comfortably around the edges. Naturally this leads to the introduction of feeler lines, which, pale-hued black, complement the lustrous matte metal quite well.

The corners of this device have been rounded to fit comfortably in your hands, and the back venire is curved slightly to aid with ergonomics and establish the French telephone front slimmer than it is. With a 5.5-inch show on the front, the OnePlus 3 is a flake large than is comfortable for one-handed use, but OnePlus has worked tricky to produce this speech sound soothing to time lag and easy to transfix. The metal back has the added fillip of resisting visible fingerprints as healed.

I was affected by how slender the OnePlus 3 is, both visually and technically. While the left and right edges thin to under 5mm, the entire handset is retributive 7.4mm rawboned; more 2mm slimmer than the OnePlus 2. This greatly improves how the handset looks and feels, although it does result in a 300 mAh decrease in battery capacity, which now sits at a standard 3,000 mAh.

The reduction in thickness has led to a increased camera module, which protrudes from the back by around 1mm. There is a slight rim around the camera glass, so I put on't think it will be damaged in general employment, but when placed on a mesa, the OnePlus 3 does tilt noticeably when you're tapping the touchscreen in the corners. Some masses are non a fan of camera bumps for this reason.

The front panel is Gorilla Ice, which curves beautifully around the edges to produce a show without a harsh bezel edge. This improves swooshability, and without a metal rim some the glass, there's nothing to poke into your hands during usance. Not every high end smartphone uses this sort of chalk blueprint, but it's becoming more common and I dear it.

The bezels more or less the display are slim, particularly on the left and right edges, which improves serviceability. The OnePlus 3 is small than the 5.5-edge in iPhone 6s Plus in altogether dimensions bar thickness (and the OnePlus 3 is only 0.1mm thicker), though the iPhone has particularly massive bezels for a high-death handset.

Infra the OnePlus 3's display is a fingermark sensor that doubles as a domestic clitoris. Unlike with the OnePlus 2, this fingerprint sensor is very high-velocity and accurate, which makes IT perfect for securing the device. I prefer to see the fingerprint sensing element on the rear of the handset – IT's more natural and rich – merely having a sensor is better than non having one.

Around the edges of the OnePlus 3 you'll find the mightiness button in a comfortable location on the rightfield incline, while the volume rocker sits along the left. Besides on the left wing is an alert slipper with three positions, which can be used to apace replacement between receiving altogether notifications, just priority notifications, Beaver State none at all. This slider was seen on the OnePlus 2, and I didn't end upward using it all that often; it's a similar story on the OnePlus 3.

On the bottom edge is where you'll find everything else. There's a USB Typecast-C embrasure for charging and data transfers, and spell this port only supports USB 2.0 speeds, the reversible hoopla is great for usability. There's also a 3.5mm audio seaman, and the single bottom-firing speaker. No advance-facing stereo speakers here, so you'll deman to cup your hands to get a dependable audio experience while watching videos. And as you'd expect, the speaker is average in quality and bulk.

The OnePlus 3 has the option of victimisation either electrical phenomenon hardware navigation buttons, or connected-screen buttons. By default, the push to the socialist of the fingermark sensor is 'back', while the one on the far opens the app whipper, however the functions of these buttons force out be changed in the settings. This is wherefore OnePlus uses basic backlit dots to denote the location of the buttons, rather than icons.

Above the business leader clit on the rectify-hand side of meat is a tray that houses two nano-SIMs. The OnePlus 3 has dual-SIM functionality, merely there is no microSD card time slot, siamese to the OnePlus 2. Normally I'd say this is a problem, and information technology was for the 16 GB models of the OnePlus 2, however the OnePlus 3 comes with 64 GB of storage as standard. This should be batch for most users, negating the need for a microSD card slot in most circumstances.